The invention relates to a conveyor assembly for packagings, in particular for heavier packagings which are fed in one by one and have to be packed in a box. The invention also relates to a method for packing those articles in a box.
Products such as bags of chips are packed by first placing the chips in bags, which are subsequently fed to a device for stacking them. When a suitable stack has been formed, said stack is pushed in some way into an outer such as a box.
Many ways of collecting such packagings, such as bags of chips, into a stack are known in the prior art. Such bags are generally fed in on a substantially horizontal conveyor belt and are subsequently stacked on top of one another in the vertical direction. During this stacking on top of one another it is important for the bags to be moved quickly, on the one hand, but not to fall from quite a great height, on the other hand.
It has in fact been found that product can be damaged if such bags fall from quite a great height. This applies to, for example, packagings of frozen chips, where the chips break during the fall.
It is an object of the present invention to move in particular larger packagings, without damaging them, from a horizontal position, in which they are lying one behind the other, to a vertical position, in which they are lying one above the other.
It is a further object of the present invention to process packagings rapidly and subsequently place them in an outer.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to accomodate packagings as far as possible without damage as they leave the end of a delivery conveyor.
More particularly, the object of the present invention is to ensure that, as a result of the high delivery speed of a conveyor, such packagings do not run against stops and the like, which can cause damage, and/or that they do not drop from a considerable height.
One or more of the abovementioned objects is achieved by a conveyor assembly for packagings, comprising a substantially horizontally conveying conveyor and an accommodation or receiving space for packagings, which receptacle is situated near the delivery end of said conveyor, in line with the latter and below it, a supporting member being provided near the delivery end of said conveyor, which supporting member is movable in the horizontal direction between a position in which the opening to said accommodation is substantially clear and a position in which said opening is shut off, while displacement means are present for moving said supporting member, which displacement means are designed in such a way that during displacement to the position which shuts off the opening of the accommodation the speed of the supporting member corresponds approximately to the speed of said conveyor.
According to a further aspect of the invention, the displacement means are embodied in such a way that the supporting member is moved at a speed of at least 1 m/s, and preferably 3 m/s, to the position which clears the opening of the accommodation.
The supporting member can comprise a supporting plate on which the packagings, such as bags of frozen chips, but also any other pack known in the prior art, can be moved.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, the displacement means comprise a servomotor. According to a further advantageous embodiment, the conveyor comprises a levelling section for placing the packagings preferably in as flat a position as possible on a conveyor and subsequently stacking them on top of one another in the vertical direction.
The invention also relates to a method for delivery of a pack from a conveyor which extends substantially horizontally to an accommodation situated below it near the end of the conveyor, in which on the arrival of said pack at the end of said conveyor a supporting plate provided near said end of said conveyor is moved past said end of said conveyor in substantially the same direction of displacement and at substantially the same speed of displacement as said conveyor, in which process said pack is moved with said supporting member, and said supporting member is moved back to the end of the conveyor after said pack is resting substantially on it.
More particularly, according to a further aspect of the invention, the bearing surface of said supporting member and the return displacement of said supporting member are embodied in such a way that said pack undergoes substantially no return displacement.
According to a special embodiment of the invention, at the end of the return displacement the pack has substantially no horizontal speed.